PHASE #18
Moving the electrical services underground
[On to Phase 19]
[Project Overview]
[Home Design Reference]
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As
with most phases, this process took some time. First I had to get an inspection of the
outside meter socket. However, before the inspector would approve that, he wanted to see
the electrical box properly grounded. The new code calls for at least two grounding
methods. The first is to a grounding rod (1/2" or 3/8" by 8') driven into the
ground on the outside of the house. This wire should be connected with #6
gauge bare
copper wire. The second ground is to the water pipes but the code gets specific here. You
need to run #4 gauge bare copper wire between the circuit breaker panel and the water
meter. However, once you do this, you loop the wire across the water meter (needs to
attach on both sides).
 8' long 3/8" copper grounding that was driven into the
ground. This particular side of the house has some concrete on it so I had to break
through that first with a sledge hammer, drive this 8' pole into the ground, and then fill
in the hole with a little cement.I reused the old electrical ground attached to the
water ground which was #6 bare copper wire. Since that wire had to be updated (replaced
with #4 gauge) I just ran this outside and connected it to the grounding rod. One
convenience I added was to coil a couple feet of spare wire just inside the house (just in
case this gets broken I can easily uncoil the wire inside to reconnect this without
pulling a new wire).
 The new code for grounding the water pipe calls for #6
gauge
bare copper wire that is attached on both sides of the water meter. If I would have done
this all over again, I would have run some extra wire as I did above.
 Kind
of hard to see here, but both grounds connect up with my
new service panel. One other thing the inspector found wrong was that I didn't use
bushings where the conduit enters the panel. I figured since it was just plastic I'd be ok
- nope! So I need to disconnect these three 2-watt wires, slip a 2" bushing over
them, and then screw the bushing to the threaded 2" couple that takes the 90-degree
conduit coming in from outside.Actually, I need to repeat this process for the other
two couplers outside on the meter socket. Why one needs to do this with plastic is beyond
me...
 I got carried away with moving the electrical services
underground and ended up moving everything underground (including cable, and phone
service). Here this contractor is digging an access hole for his boring tool. The tool
works off air pressure to gradually push its way between two access holes. Once complete,
the contractor digs up the tool, disconnects the air hose, and then pulls the remaining
hose through the hole (while also pulling through the conduit).
I ran 1 and 1/2 "
conduit between the house and the garage. After completing that, I used a 100'
fish tape to
pull 4 cat 5 wires and one quad shielded RG6.
 Here you can see the contractor digging around looking for
the tool as it moves towards him inside the hole. The tool makes a loud vibration that he
can hear to let him know where it is at.I used this contractor to run conduit under all
the obstacles like flower beds, driveways, and side walks. Paying this guy $500 was money
well spent. If I was to break up the sidewalk and the driveway alone that would have cost
over $2,000. If I'd have touched the flower bed the cost would have been enormous! :-)
The hose is connected to a large air compressor as shown
here. Not that you should never let people park these on your lawn
because the heat from them will fry your grass. Should be parked on the
street.
Then the fun part began! I got cheap and decided that I
would dig the final leg of the trench myself to connect up all this conduit. Was about 8
hours of digging that I spread over a few days.
 Here you can see the two conduits run to the junction that
was pushed under the driveway. I used 2" conduit for the electrical and ran a second
1 and 1/2" conduit for the cable TV wire. Perhaps a bit overkill but I already had
the other run of 1 and 1/2" to the garage so it was easier to just do this and then
install a junction box.The kids really enjoyed the mounds of dirt!
 Here you can see all that remains uncovered of all the
conduit run. This is the junction of the runs to the garage and to the electrical pole.
When complete, I'll open this access box and pull the rest of the cable from the garage as
well as the cable TV wire from the street to this point and then pull all wires from this
point on into the house. Its a lot of work to just get rid of wires attached to the
house.
 In the end, the goal will be to finally get rid of this
"temporary" pole that has held the electrical service entering the home. Here is
the new 200 AMP meter socket as well as my conduit run from here on into the service panel
in the basement. When I upgraded the meter socket I did not swap out the old meter - just
everything else. All that remains is for Excel Energy to come out and pull out this pole,
pull new wire through the conduit, and then connect everything up to this meter
socket. The conduit is a couple feet below this pole so I could not do anything more as I
could weaken the foundation of the temporary pole and risk it falling over.The 1 and 1/2" conduit will run into where the little white piece of wood is. From
there all these services will go through a whole house grounding unit that connects to the
fuse box. From there, they will connect up to a board in the basement where all the Cat5
and Coax terminate.
Actual project cost summary:
$500 trenching
$590 Excel
$175 Conduit, elbos, junctions, bushings, and glue
$95 Meter socket (200 AMP)
$95 Whole house (3-way) surge protector (covers electrical, cable, and telephone)
$100 wire (#4 guage ground, ground rod, 2 watt wire)
$1,555 Total
[On to Phase 19]
[Project Overview]
[Home Design Reference]
[Lien Waver Example]
[Buy
a House] [Heating & AC]
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